alien abduction

The purported kidnapping, usually for sinister medical or
genetic experimentation, of humans by extraterrestrials. The first abduction
stories appeared in the wake of revelations of contact with the occupants
of flying saucers by writers such as George Adamski.
As in the much-analyzed case of Betty and Barney Hill, details of the reported
abductions were often elicited under hypnosis. Following the publication
of John G. Fuller's The Interrupted Journey (1966)1, concerning
the Hill incident, the number of claimed cases of alien abduction began
to rise steeply. Interest in the subject was further stimulated by the release
of Close Encounters of the Third
Kind (in which the alien kidnappers turn out to be benign).

By the 1980s, the abduction scenario, recounted ad nauseam in chat-show
interviews and tabloid stories, had taken on a stereotypical pattern, involving
a humiliating examination aboard the alien craft, the removal of sperm
or ovum samples, and inter-species sexual relations.
Abductees generally "recalled" their experiences as a result of hypnotic
regression which, it was claimed, released memories that had been suppressed
by a more innocuous recollection. The explosion in alien abduction claims
was both accompanied and encouraged by an outpouring of popular literature
(for example, by Hopkins and Strieber),
TV documentaries, and motion pictures sympathetic to the theme. Some plausibility,
to a phenomenon that might otherwise have been quickly dismissed, was lent
by the apparent sincerity of many claimants and the establishment of abductee
support groups throughout the US.

By the late 1980s, a growing unease had set in with the concept of "recovered
memories". Aside from abduction stories unearthed by hypnosis, there was
an alarming growth of child sex-abuse claims. After attending therapy sessions,
subjects would "remember" having been abused as children, usually by close
relatives and involving satanic ritual. Courts had convicted, or awarded
civil damages against, a number of "abusers" on the strength of recovered
memories alone. Some of the accused had formed their own support groups
and were suing therapists, sometimes successfully, for the ruin brought
upon them by their grown-up children. Senior members of the American medical
establishment began openly to cast doubt on the whole technique. However,
in 1994, the endangered case for alien abduction was given an unexpected
boost by the publication of a book by John Mack,2
professor of psychiatry at Harvard, which argued strongly in favor of the
view that the abductions were real. Unfortunately for Mack, he was devastatingly
criticized by his peers and had his case further undermined by the revelation
that one of the subjects he described was a journalist on a debunking mission.
Although the extraterrestrial option is given short shrift by the scientific
community in general, alien abduction as a phenomenon with genuine psychological
and possibly geophysical underpinnings has been the subject of a number
of serious investigations and conferences.3, 4, 5 Even if aliens
are not to blame, it may be that tales of abduction can shed valuable light
on effects such as false memory
syndrome and temporal lobe lability.